Tuesday, April 11, 2017

** "There is a much broader debate in America, about whose right it is to tell a story."

UK filmmaker and journalist Camilla Hall is on the line from LA to delve into her documentary, Copwatch. Spotlighting just how activists have organized together to do counter-surveillance on the police across this country, who are engaging in perpetrating racist sanctioned brutality and murders - and as part of the evolving mass movement video revolution. And in particular, the police murder of Eric Garner, and the ongoing defense of Ramsey Orta who's been railroaded for filming that murder - in a series of retaliatory arrests and imprisonments targeting him. With music by The Peace Poets. A Tribeca Film Festival feature.

** "The always wonderful Marion Cotillard returns from the dead, to briefly breathe life into a film that retrogressively celebrates the director's Peter Pan syndrome as a mark of genius."

Bro On The World Film Beat: Arts Express Paris correspondent Professor Dennis Broe, continuing his followup on location reports from the Cannes Film Festival. And what's been going down there artistically and politically, including: A scathing critique of Russian deep capitalism consumer society playing out post-socialism; the post-colonial projection on Bulgaria of Germanic might in direct relation to its Nazi past; the scenario of a new form of bio-medical exploitation benefiting Big Pharma; the worst film of the festival, sprinkling references to James Joyce, Melville and Hitchcock; and plenty of President Macron predictions offscreen, into the fall.

** "That sort of irreverence and willingness to experiment, and that courage and being willing to fall on their faces, I think that's part of what makes the music so exhilarating now."

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the release of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album. And phoning in to Arts Express to ponder the wild when not weird eternal legacy of the Beatles on this occasion, is Rolling Stone journalist and author Rob Sheffield. Reflecting on why their music has endured through the decades, and how the group transformed popular music as both entertainment and art. Sheffield's book on the subject is Dreaming The Beatles: The Love Story Of One Band And The Whole World.

** "There's a lot of over-medication going on out there - and maybe if that's tied to a story, it would make it something more than just being a sci-fi movie."

Filmmaker Stanley Jacobs phones in to Arts Express to talk about 96 Souls, his simultaneously surreal and hyper-sensory political sci-fi fantasy thriller - probing among other things, the oppressive power of pharmaceutical corporations over US society, universities, and experiemental scientific research. And, a rebel innovative bio-chemistry professor, dodging these establishment forces.

More information about the Tribeca Film Festival is online at Tribecafilm.com/festival.

Arts Express: Airing on the WBAI/Pacifica National Radio Network and Affiliate Stations.